


all too sore for sound

by morzz



Category: The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, angsty angst and comfort that's it, post-MOA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-11
Updated: 2013-06-11
Packaged: 2017-12-14 14:44:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/838059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morzz/pseuds/morzz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jason, we can’t live in fear. That’s what Gaea wants us to do, and that's not living. We live in hope.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	all too sore for sound

They all arrive into the ship defeated and incomplete. Two parts of the seventh were gone and everybody felt as close to mourning them. After their brief meeting on the quarterdeck, all of them managing weak grins, they go on separate ways. Leo departs to helm, Frank and Hazel stay there, Nico, given one of the guest cabins, goes to rest, even Coach Hedge is unusually pensive. The only noise you heard was Hazel’s muffled sobbing, and you could tell she was trying very hard to be silent, Frank’s words in her ear barely a whisper. It must’ve been hardest for her since she saw everything and couldn’t help. And instead of wanting to talk, Piper leaves to go to her cabin, leaving Jason feel only as deflated as a balloon that had been just popped and sucked the life off. This was a hard time for all of them and he only wished for it to get better but to him, it seems like they’re all going to be stuck in this state in a while — the state of denial and fake smiles.

He strides solemnly and slowly to his cabin, trying to fill himself with air, and once he locked his door, in the dull moment of it all, he raises his fist and punches the empty white wall filled with ghostly memories. It makes one hollowed dent like a supernova in space, and the next thing he knows he’s wet with tears, blood, sweat, and anguish. His knuckles bruised, his face like a river devoured by lightning. He’s angry and consumed, and crushed, and useless at the same time. And most of all, he’s stupid. A stupid stupid stupid child that can’t help his own friends.

He gulps down his animosity, filled with bitter blood, and gasps for breath. Never has he had anything like this happen to him — the discomforted shaking, the malevolence of electricity engrossing his body, the fear of losing air, blood boiling like burning baths. For a son of Jupiter, this whole feeling is irrational and disturbing for him. And as a distraction, he sets to tend his freshly ripe knuckle whose blood had smeared all over his arm and shirt, making him seem like somewhat barbaric. He washes his fist, and ices it for a while, before wrapping it in loose bandages. He even turns on his mini tv, which he never thought he’d use before. The distraction works — there is no more lightning in his face, only distress, exhaustion, possibly yearning.

He falls asleep soon enough, still in his blood-stained purple shirt, wearing day-old torn jeans, and grimy white Chucks that never seem to hold any socks. He dreams of Piper and only good things for once. And he silently thanks Juno for that — it’s a pretty nice birthday gift.

 

* * *

 

He wakes up when there is a stir at his door. A gentle knock and when he didn't answer, the door dispatches slightly. It's Piper. Precious, gorgeous Piper, coming into his room at, _wow_ , one a.m.

"What are you watching?" she whispers, looking at his television which he forgot to turn off.

"Erm..." He scruff his hair and yawns. He takes one look at the screen before he realizes he's watched this movie before. "Superman. With Christopher Reeve."

Piper sits at the bay of his bed, taking notice of the hole in the wall and his bandaged fist. She takes his bruised hand and holds it. "Jason..." She presses her lips to his knuckles, ever so gently, like petals falling into grass. The touch of her lips, cold and warm at the same time.

"Hi Piper." He stares at her with lonely eyes, "I'm sorry."

"Hi Jason." There's a long pause, where she only stares at him, eyes wavering. "You have nothing to be sorry about. We should get you cleaned up." She gives him a kiss, on the lips this time, while pulling him to stand up. "Please, go take a shower and change your clothes. We'll talk afterwards." She gives him a gentle smile, and he obliges.

There is a mutual understanding there, a quiet comfort. He's memorized her mannerisms like the back of his hand and the scar on his lip. He knows when she's speaking her charm and when she's not. _And this,_ this was pure Piper. Comforting, warm Piper. No charm, no magic. It was as real to him as it have ever been.

"Yes, ma'am." So he does what she tells him to do. He takes a shower, burning and steaming, and changes into another purple shirt, this time clean and no blood stains.

When he comes out, Piper has cleaned out his bedroom. No more blood on the bed, no clatter on the ground. She sits by the end of his bed idly by, drawn to the movie, wrung hands sweaty.

Putting on a deeper voice, he surprises her, "Easy, miss, I've got you." She turns to him like a scared little girl. "You've got me? Who's got you?" she gasps and laughs. They've both watched this movie before, not together but, Piper's dad works in the movies, and Jason has had a harbored love for superheroes. In their spare times, they would talk about it, comparing notes, vowing that if he was Clark Kent, it was only right that she was Lois Lane.

He drops to his bed, freshly crisp in his new clothes."Jason, what happened?" Piper says, smooth and quietly, grazing his jaw with her thumb, suddenly solemn. She’s referring to the hole in the wall, the bandaged fist, the blood on his shirt. She’s referring to the fact that he had done all this when she wasn’t looking.

"I don't know, Pipes. I was angry. I think I had one of those panic attacks. I couldn’t _breathe_. Like I was gasping for air and... I'm supposed to be able to control air around me," he says, not unyielding at all. This was Piper, it was okay to become a boy again.

"Jason— Percy and Annabeth, that wasn't your fault. You couldn't have helped them; Annabeth was tied to a string that pulled her down and Percy came down with her. You were helping with the statue. You couldn't have carried all of them. It’s _okay_.”

"I could've tried!" He yells, with the echoes reverberating from the walls. "I could've tried. I stood there and did nothing, while I watch my friends fall. I could’ve. I could have helped them. I could've." And then there are tears from his face. Even with the short amount of sleep he'd gotten, his face still bedraggled, and eyes bloodshot. This is probably the worse Piper has seen him. Maybe she'll break up with him the next day, when he's all well-rested. Which he knows is highly unlikely since he's not going to be well-rested for a while.

"No— no, there is nothing you could do, nothing we could do to stop it. It happened, and it happened to all of us. Frank, Hazel, Nico, Leo, even Coach, are probably having second-thoughts about it too. This is as hard to them as to you. Jason, _please,_ you are not a bad person for not trying." She kisses his cheek. "You don’t need to do everything all at once. Even Superman has his faults." She kisses his other cheek, tears building up on the corner of her eyes.

He pulls her, bringing his lips to her ear, holding her in a tight embrace. He needs this, he needs her. "Piper, _I'm scared._ This means that everyone is going to be counting on me, that I'm their leader. I'm not though, _I'm tired. I’m scared._ " His voice breaks on his word, and he must sound like a little boy. But Jason never had a chance to be that little boy. He was always a leader, a son of Jupiter. The strong, brave, unyielding Jason Grace.

Piper takes his face in her hands and forces him to look at her, foreheads touching. Her eyes resemble pixie dust with a variety of colors, pupils blown and dilated completely. “Jason, we can’t live in fear. That’s what Gaea wants us to do, and that's not living. We live in _hope_.”

She spoke in so much clarity, in so much credibility. He believes her right there and then, vowing that there should be stars written for her and her alone.

He leans into her for a kiss, stopping to graze her lips with his. He whispers, "thank you," and proceeds. The kiss is gentle and adamant at the same time, like a prayer, becoming more and more intense by the second. Jason forgets that Piper is in his room and they're alone. The coach would kill them, but he's so hung upon her scent of her and the delirium of it all.

It stays like this for awhile, teeth and mouths clashing and moving like one, until both are out of breathe. "Oh yeah. Crap. I forgot to ask you— how's your shoulder?"

"Oh, it's all fine now. I had some rest and ambrosia. It's okay," she makes it out before she reaches for Jason again, lips clashing. _Electricity,_ that's what he feels when he's with Piper. Sparks erupting like lava from a volcano, it's perfect.

This time, Piper is the one that pulls away from him, something obviously calculating in her mind. "Jason, earlier— when we were going underwater in the nymphaeum—"

"I heard you." Ha. This is probably what she came to talk about in the first place, he realizes. She must've been wanting to talk about that and what she said earlier. He heard her, loud and clear. When he was about to drown, all he thought of was her kiss and what she said.

"I— I didn't— I don't think—" she tries to continue, no words forming in her mouth. But Jason knew what she was going to say, she was just about to take it back, say she only said it in the heat of the moment, embarrassed because he didn't say it back.

He cuts her off, "No, I heard you, Piper Mclean, loud and clear. Don't you dare take it back and lie about it." He kisses her in lips, full and firm.

"I love you," she speaks, in between kisses.

He pulls away from her, and they're both really clinging and desperate but he really, _really_ wants to look at her when he says this. He cups her cheeks in his fingers and he smiles. Genuinely. "I love you." He kisses her cheekbone. "I love you." He kisses her jawline, and slowly dragging his lips along her delicate skin to reach her lips, "I love you." He grins as he kisses her, and be can feel under his skin that she is too.

“Piper, are you happy? Are we happy?” He positions himself against his headboard, with Piper in his arms.

“Yeah. I think we are,” she answers honestly.

They watch the remaining minutes of the movie before Piper stirs to get up. She probably understands that the coach is gonna kill them, right after what happened with Percy and Annabeth, would ground and ship them off to never see each other again, but there’s just something that feels vacant without her in his arms. Maybe it’s the placidity he feels when he’s around her, her ability to keep composure and lull him down without her charmspeak. She must try very hard to appear effortless, and over the past few months, he’s decided that this is one of the things he loves about her the most. It makes her _human._

“Piper,” he musters up the audacity to speak, “if you want, you could— um— stay here for awhile. With me. Like, sleep. I’ll wake you up before Coach Hedge does his morning rounds, I promise.”

She smiles at that thought. “Yeah,” she nods, “yeah sure, Jason. That would be nice.” She plops down to bed and goes under the covers, so it’s only her, him, and the warmth. It really might’ve been the automatic room-temperature thing that Leo install in all the cabins, but Jason reckons it was only Piper.

“Thank you. I love you.”

“No problem, Superman.”

**Author's Note:**

> one of the scenes was inspired by this [comic strip](http://fuckyeahlois.tumblr.com/post/43027306020/baudyhallee-14-days-of-superman-clark-and-lois).


End file.
